Core Foundations and Integrations
How do you choose the right tech solutions for Marketing?
Your mailbox and LinkedIn messages are likely testament to the fact there are thousands of marketing solutions in multiple categories.
There are loads of really cool and effective tools, so it can be a bit overwhelming knowing which ones to choose. Most can plug in to your ecosystem, and most have AI embedded at the core - so it's a matter of working out priority and what works best for your goals.
There is no out of the box tech stack – what you need will be unique to your business model, target audience, goals and priorities. If you have a marketing strategy, then the tech you need will fall into place to support your goals.
Get the foundations right and it’s easier for you to see where the value lies in any tech solution. At GTMHive, we lay out a tech stack for the essentials – a starter kit if you like!
Essentially there are 4 core building blocks. Website, CRM, Workflow and Creative. Around them, you can integrate all sorts of tech that will improve insight, performance, data and creativity.
Why MarTech?
Marketing technology helps you get in front of the right audience at the right time, with personalised, impactful messaging to grow awareness, leads and revenue. There’s loads you can do for free in early stages of a fledgling, but there comes a point where you need to commit! You can do this in low cost increments, so this article will help you to plan.
Marketing needs to demonstrate success – so low cost outreach and high visibility analytics let you see progress and RoI - new contacts added to the database, web visitors, social follows and engagement, promoted content and enquiry.
The problem with technology is that often, only a fraction of capability is used – so our advice is to max the capability where you can. As you read on, you’ll see there is lots of overlap that can be deployed, so don't spend when you don't need to.
Let’s dive into the 4 core pillars – Web, CRM, Workflow and Creative
Web Site
Your website is your shop window – you want it to be found and you want it to impress. You also want it to convert – capture sign up, watch a video, download content, or enquire. That means the website platform you choose will need to handle dynamic and animated content and integrate with other solutions.
Wordpress, Wix, Ionos, and more have plenty of templates for start-ups to self-serve build. Wordpress is still a powerhouse, so it’s easy to find Wordpress specialist staff or agencies. But don’t rule out newer entrants. Wix, for example can also handle social posting, email marketing and event booking if you plan to run Webinars or LinkedIn live for example.
There are lots of solutions to improve web performance and conversion - like Unbounce or Lead Forensics, who provide actionable insight to convert visitors, as well as functionality like AB testing for landing pages. Two fundamental components of web success are search and analytics.
Search/SEO
This is both outbound and inbound optimisation and both paid and organic marketing. When people are searching, you need to rank well – for clicks and for brand credibility. Search involves technical enhancements to the site as well as creating the high quality content that Google values and ranks highly. Tools like Moz and Semrush are low cost and help you understand your website performance, as well as keywords and backlinks. Google Adwords lets you test different strategies, ad styles, key words and propositions. These tools should be integrated with your analytics. If you've used an agency to build your site they will use these or similar tools.
Analytics
Marketing performance of web, email, social, advertising and events are trackable like never before. It doesn’t just happen though, you need to have analytics set up, and have people on hand who know how to set up and use data. Websites often come with analytics, or you can activate Google Analytics. There are more sophisticated enterprise level paid analytics tools available, but they tend to more for e-commerce and large corporates. Make sure you plug in CRM and track social media and advertising performance so you know which ads are clicked on, and which ads lead to the most opportunities and revenue. These insights can be applied to all of your online marketing activity.
If you are spending on advertising, plug ins like AdTech can help optimise spend and performance. Remarketing can also be done through Google. It's straightforward to set up and cost effective – after all you’re only reaching people who have already expressed interest by visiting your site.
CRM
CRM is another MarTech tool where capability is often under-deployed. Marketing and Sales effort integrated, visible and reportable. It’s important to champion the benefits of CRM or you waste a lot of money. There are a few on the market, but Hubspot and Salesforce are most common – that means it’s easier to find colleagues and agencies with experience to get the best out of the system.
CRM systems come with a range of analytics as well as email functionality along with great reporting dashboards. To get value, you need to integrate it into your website.
That starts to bring everything into one central ecosystem – analytics, online forms, tracking web visitors’ source and behaviour, testing and personalising web content and managing email – including automation and nurture to respond and follow up on activity like downloaded content or event bookings and reminders. Lead scoring can alert sales teams to reach out, and calendar booking software make arranging demos friction free.
Workflow
Workflow systems help marketing teams streamline, organise and manage projects and campaigns – sharing work for collaboration, comment and approval. A workflow system is not usually on the radar in early stages of a company, but as you scale up the importance increases. Workflow manages all your marketing assets, providing a central digital asset library for adverts, web pages, white papers, emails, merchandise and so on. You have the audit trail for budget, sign-off and an asset expiry date. It’s searchable – so you can quickly identify what assets you need to change when you move office, or when there’s new wording required by regulators. There are several on the market like Monday, Trello or BeTheBrand, and some CRMs (like Hubspot) have workflow embedded as an option.
Creative Suite
An inhouse artworker is worth their weight in gold. Email design, social posts, infographics, presentations and web content work better when they are well designed, and even better with with sound and motion - animated Gifs, short storytell videos and vox pops. Adobe creative suite is universal, but there are options like Canva and video editing tools that can be combined with free photography, sound and video clips from Pixabay or Unsplashed.
Webinars and Podcasts are another integration. Webinars aren’t just for the people who dial in on the day – they can be recorded and reused in social and web content. You want software that integrates with CRM for automated countdown reminders and follow up, as well as in-event activity like polls and questions. GoTo meetings or Zoom are good for integrating. For podcast, you can read the GTM Hive view on creating podcasts and videos here.
Social media tools like Hootsuite, Brandwatch or Falcon help with social listening and management. LinkedIn has become important for B2B – Navigator is expensive (there are alternatives) but gets you to your target, and there are a few tools now that integrate well with LinkedIn.
So there you have it – the basic building blocks. Strategy first, technology second. Deal with the core blocks, then integrate what you need according to your priority.
Next Steps
If you need help with your Marketing tech strategy - or would you like a consultation or audit on your marketing effort, our GTM Marketing experts can help – check out our rates now.
You can also read the blogs and use our free templates for a range of Marketing topics, including Modern Marketing Structures, Linking Business and Marketing Strategy, GTM strategy, Value Propositions, Agency selection and Agency briefing. They're all in the Hive Knowledge Hub.
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